[SCzEngrgGroup]

Here's how you dry machine aluminum: [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAcBU2iqkKE"]YouTube- Fraisa High Performance Milling 6061 Aluminum[/nomedia]

[PropNut]

Thanks to the information in this thread I have made my first, successful, aluminum milling effort. My first try was unlubed and was....well...lost a couple of good bits...my second attempt (using your info) was perfect. I worked on my feeds and speeds and lubed using WD-40. A perfect pocket 2"x4" into soft aluminum plate (.125) to a depth of .09. Thanks for posting the great information.

[Cmailco]

Here's how you dry machine aluminum: YouTube- Fraisa High Performance Milling 6061 Aluminum

Probably one of, if not the best, end mills out there for aluminum roughing right now is the Data Flute ALDH series 3 flute; .500 diameter, .500 axial, 140º tool engagement angle, 600 in/min, ~133 in³ material removal rate, with minimum quantity lubricant.

The newest generation of variable-fluters from Data Flute and OSG are pretty hard to beat.

[mwood3]

I did not think it was spamming. However not that we know that it not acceptable we won't add links in the threads. We are new to this type of forum, however very experienced in tooling. Our products are all 100% guaranteed. We carry economy level tools for those who need them. The best of the less expensive tools. We also carry our premium level tools that will run as well or better than anything in the market. We have over 35 years of application sales including but not limited to training Hundreds of Distributor Sales People and 15 years of owning a tool manufacturing company that specialized in manufacturing private label tools for larger manufacturers and large distributors. It took many years to build the line we now offer on line. We are building our own label. We are not just another get any brand they want kind of company.
Best Regards,
Marty

Marty,

I dont think it is wrong to post links to your product...just try to link specificlly to the item in question...I did follow your link and it seemed to go to a home page that didnt help narrow down the tool need for the job. we need all the knowledge and help we can gain here on the zone and i have no problem with people profiting from it as long as it stays relevant and helpful.

[CDTooling]

We have a product that we will be putting on line later this week. That we have been selling for about a year now.
We have a two and three flute variable helix End mill with a ZRN coating. This end mill run circles around just about anything I have seen in 30 years of application selling and Training. It is our 350 2 flute, 360 3 flute (0.005-0.007 Radius Tooth) AlumaMax end mill. We also have square tooth. Use the radius if you can it helps prevent chipping.

Here is a copy of the page that we will be listing next week with the technical information you are looking for they are not on my site yet. However they are in stock for same day shipping.

These are starting speeds that may be increased in 10% increments until you start to see chatter.

The ZRM coating has excellent lubricity to help prevent build up on the cutting edge. I hope you find this information helpful




Best Regards,
Marty

[hi_im_sean]

I cut a lot of .080" 6061 aluminum on a cnc router dry. I use an Onsrud O-flute, single flute cutter spinning at 19,600 rpm. Feed rate varies between 130-170 ipm. For the .080" thick material, I will drop the bit .095" so that it goes completely through the material. For pocketing routines, I use the same spindle speed and feed rate with a 90% step over.

are you the radiator guard manufacturer?

[Unabiker]

are you the radiator guard manufacturer?

Yup.

[mwood3]

Excellent Marty!

this type of post gives people options I doubt you will see objections from that type of post, unless the mods and owners dont like it of course

[CDTooling]

thank you
Best Regards.
Marty

Excellent Marty!

this type of post gives people options I doubt you will see objections from that type of post, unless the mods and owners dont like it of course

[gunrunnerx]

I've been pouring over Bob Warfield's wonderful site www.cnccookbook.com for the last week. He talks about dry machining aluminum, but it seems his definition of dry is "not flood". I'd like to machine aluminum actually dry and wonder how I should change my feeds and speeds in G-Wizard? From reading Bob's post it seems like I should alter my SFM, but by how much when completely dry is not spelled out.

I will be taking 0.05 WOC, .1875" DOC passes through 6061 with a 3 flute 3/8" endmill made for Aluminum at my roughing stage. G-Wizard suggests 49 IPM @2000RPM on my X3 mill. Any suggestions for a better IPM or DOC (WOC is fixed in my setup)? Can I really run that fast dry?

Attached is a picture of my project for this weekend:

Kingjamez,
How did your lower turnout? Were you able to get it completed?

[gunrunnerx]

We have a product that we will be putting on line later this week. That we have been selling for about a year now.
We have a two and three flute variable helix End mill with a ZRN coating. This end mill run circles around just about anything I have seen in 30 years of application selling and Training. It is our 350 2 flute, 360 3 flute (0.005-0.007 Radius Tooth) AlumaMax end mill. We also have square tooth. Use the radius if you can it helps prevent chipping.

Here is a copy of the page that we will be listing next week with the technical information you are looking for they are not on my site yet. However they are in stock for same day shipping.

These are starting speeds that may be increased in 10% increments until you start to see chatter.

The ZRM coating has excellent lubricity to help prevent build up on the cutting edge. I hope you find this information helpful




Best Regards,
Marty

That is perfect information. Thank you for sharing. This will more than likely drive a lot more business to your company. Thank you again.

[Kingjamez]

I made a noob error and crashed my high helix endmill into the work piece. It was working very well though until that point. Light, fast passes worked like a charm and the cutter never moved more than 5 degrees above ambien,t even after an hour+ of milling. I hope to have time again this weekend to start over and get a real part out. I'll post how it goes.

-Jim

[CDTooling]

Kingjamez,
How did your lower turnout? Were you able to get it completed?

I Had a customer that had to machine dry. He ended up using the zrn coating shown in this listing and added a cold air gun pointed at the cutter. It worked out very well.
Best Regards,
Marty

[BobWarfield]

Hi guys. Sorry to be late to the party.

Dry machining aluminum or whatever is very doable, but you have to cover the bases in terms of what the coolant does:

First and foremost is chip evacuation. Bad things will happen if you don't move the chips out. Liquid coolant has more mass, and so moves chips better, but air works fine. Step one for the "dry" machinist ought to be rigging an air nozzle to the spindle so they don't have to stand there with a gun. BTW, a lot of peeps like flood because the air and their compressor are LOUD compared to a coolant pump.

Clearing chips is probably 60-70% of the issue.

Second is lubrication. Some materials, particularly aluminum and stainless, want to stick to your cutter. if you're lucky, you get a little built up edge. If you're not lucky, a big ole gummy ball of aluminum winds up on the cutter and things go bad in a big hurry from there. Flood coolant delivers a lot of lubrication. If you don't have it, you need to make up for it.

As was mentioned, WD-40 works good to lubricate. End mill coatings can help, but they are expensive and you need to be sure you have the right coating. Delivering a little lubrication is where a mister really shines. Lots of different kinds, and keep an eye out for ones that put the mist on the part versus in the air where you breath it in.

Now, you're within about 20% of the performance of a flood cool system if you have dealt with chip clearance and lubrication.

Surprisingly, what is left is cooling. Gee, they call it "coolant", why isn't that first? Well, because it just isn't as big a factor as the other two. If it was, things would go crazy heat-wise very very quickly if the slightest thing went wrong with your cutter in almost any cut. Yeah, the cooling helps, and there are various ways to get the benefits from flood, cold air guns, and even compressed air clearing chips helps. But, the very best answer is to use the right cutting parameters so most of the heat goes out in the chip and you are not rubbing your cutter's edge on the part.

Here is an article with a little more depth on these topics:

http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCDryMachining.html

FWIW, G-Wizard's feeds and speeds are on the conservative side for Flood Coolant. They're fine for non-flood where you are taking care that chips are cleared and there is lubrication for sticky materials.

Be REALLY paranoid about chip clearing. If you are down in a slot, watch it like a hawk and make sure you air nozzle is doing the job. Down in a slot going around a corner is particularly bad. A little chip buildup and a lack of decent lubrication and you're going to start breaking endmills. Keep the chips clear and the edges lubricated and you'll be surprised at how fast you can fly without flood coolant.

G-Wizard will be updated before too long to calculate the difference of feeds and speeds with and without flood. Mostly that means the guys with flood will get to use a little more aggressive numbers. BTW, the difference varies with the material and the two factors that affect that are how well the material conducts heat and how sticky it is. Some materials (Titanium!) are such lousy heat conductors it is pretty hard to machine it without coolant (until you get above the speed range where coolant works, but that's another story).

Phew, sorry for the long post.

Cheers,

BW

[gunrunnerx]

I made a noob error and crashed my high helix endmill into the work piece. It was working very well though until that point. Light, fast passes worked like a charm and the cutter never moved more than 5 degrees above ambien,t even after an hour+ of milling. I hope to have time again this weekend to start over and get a real part out. I'll post how it goes.

-Jim

Oh no. Sorry to hear about that. Its great news on the temps though.

Thanks for sharing and keep us posted. Im really looking forward to seeing how you do. Ive always wanted to do this.

[knudsen]

I made a noob error and crashed my high helix endmill into the work piece. It was working very well though until that point. Light, fast passes worked like a charm and the cutter never moved more than 5 degrees above ambien,t even after an hour+ of milling. I hope to have time again this weekend to start over and get a real part out. I'll post how it goes.

-Jim

I just got an enco sale flyer in, and they have a bunch of roughers on sale, so you might look there if you need to order replacements, just google a free ship promo code, presumably PDFSEP if the trend continues...

[Kingjamez]

Bob,
Thanks for taking the time to help out!

So I used GWiz to get my speeds and feeds and was able to hog this out tonight with my 1/2" Indexable endmill and 1/4" 3 flute rougher that Knudsen recommended above. This was done in about an hour with a bottle mist of Koolmist 77 (diluted as per instructions) and an occasional airblast. Material is 6061. So "non-flood" aluminum milling is indeed possible.

[BobWarfield]

Excellent!

I like the roughers myself. They're kinda Old School, but they get the job done, so I keep a couple on hand and use them frequently.

Cheers,

BW

[Cmailco]

We've been milling aluminum alloys at very high speeds and feeds incorporating HSM techniques for almost ten years now with very minimal quantity coolant systems, aka MQL.

The only thing "coolant" really helps with is in reducing built-up edge (BUE). If the end mill is designed properly, it will take care of chip ejection with a little help from pressurized air and minimum lubrication. Pay close attention to the chip formation at around the 3:10 second mark. Also note that they are using miniscule quantities of coolant.

Data Flute ALDH-series

Coatings are important in reducing BUE as a good coating like DLC (diamond-like carbon) or ZrN (zirconium nitride) along with MQL vegetable based lubricants really do play a part... though the chip formation is probably of most importance. Reducing coolant disposal costs and environmental issues are probably the largest push towards designing better dry and/or near-dry tools. Slow as always to catch on here in the good ol' USA but very popular in Europe and Asia right now. Coolant disposal costs being what they are, you'd think that more people would be looking to MQL here in the states but then.... I'm from Texas where everyone and their grandmother drives an SUV back and forth to work every day.

[BobWarfield]

Even aside from coolant costs you reach a point (not on most CNCZone machines) where the coolant is deleterious to the carbide tool life due to shock cooling.

Cheers,

BW